Thursday, November 09, 2006

FITS Long-Awaited Ralph Norman Blog

Walter Whetsell, Jon Lerner and the rest of the Katon Dawson A-Team running Ralph Norman's Congressional challenge against John Spratt had perhaps the best candidate the GOP has fielded in years in the 5th District, which was incidentally also trending more Republican than it had in years.

There's really not much else to say except that this one could go down as the worst-managed campaign in state history.

8 Comments:

Tim Cameron said...

Republicans didn't oust one incubent in any national race. While things are a bit better throughout the state, why should have this one been any different. It could have been a closer race, but regardless national sentiments would keep any Repubilican out of the 5th Congressionial seat.

How about we'll take a fiscally conservative state rep, half the cash, one quarter of the meaningless establishment endorsements, none of the DC bozo advice and we'll show you a win in 2 years. Seriously, you make it sound like this stuff is triple-bypass surgery.

Joe Six Pack and Soccer Mom are the ballgame. Period. And neither of them are as stupid as political people think that they are, particularly the national GOP establishment consultants this cycle. Team Norman's campaign - and dozens of GOP campaigns like his across the country - operated under the assumption that the entire electorate consists of a bunch of Joshua Grosses and Laurin Mannings (no offense intended to either of these fine folks, obviously).

They honestly believed that people outside California's 8th District actually gave a rat's rear end who Nancy Pelosi is, and of course the bitter irony in their insider hell right now is that a whole lot of people are about to know exactly who she is.

It wasn't "always an uphill fight," but be sure to send us a postcard from beside the river in Egypt.

A little own candidate research would have gone a long way in that race. I mean your guy is a developer right? So before you go running ads about illegal immigration, you may want to check and see how many illegals were employed on his job sites. That wasn't Norman's fault, heck he's a competitve businessman. His consultants should have checked the immigration thing out. That is campaign management 101.

His "braintrust" might also want to consider not letting Spratt get away with that ludicrous social security ad he had in heavy rotation. All Spratt does is run the same Dem playbook from the 70s and 80s. It is a shame Norman's folks didn't engage him on that. Thus violating campaign mgt rule number one-an attack unanswered is an attack agreed to.

Jeez it is hard to think of anything those numb nuts did right in Norman's campaign.

SC 5 CD was a microcosm of the RNC failure to have a vision and articulate that vision. Even echoing Bobby Kennedy with a "John Spratt says you never had ot so good, I say you ought to have it better" would have tightened things. Now the district best be ready for the crumbs that the Schumer hog leaves in the trough.

For their inept direction of the race, that A-team ought to fall on their swords and follow Mehlman's lead. It wasn't Katon's place to run that campaign